Cost of care exercise and market sustainability plan
Fair cost of care – Publication of Annexe B
The Government published a white paper in December 2021, ‘People at the Heart of Care: adult social care reform’. The paper aims to put personalised care and support at the heart of adult social care. There is also funding for local authorities to prepare their markets for reform. A condition for local authorities to receive future funding is that they needed to show the work they are doing to prepare their markets.
Local authorities were required by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to:
- undertake a cost of care exercise involving the local adult social care provider market
- draft a market sustainability plan.
Cost of care exercise
The cost of care exercise was an opportunity for local authorities and local care providers to work together to arrive at a shared understanding of what it costs to operate quality and sustainable care provisions that are reflective of local circumstances. The focus of the exercise was:
- home care for those aged 18+ and
- care homes supporting those over 65+.
The exercise took place towards the second half of 2022. Providers were given lots of opportunities and encouragement to be part of this exercise but unfortunately response rates were low. Whilst the information from this exercise was interesting, as the submissions were based upon such a small sample of the local provider market, it cannot be viewed as representative. DHSC have confirmed that ‘the outcome of the cost of care exercise is not intended to be a replacement for the fee-setting element of local authority commissioning processes or individual contract negotiation’ which will continue as usual.
Market sustainability plan
After the publication of the cost of care reports, we then created the Market Sustainability Plan. It relates to the position of the market at the time of completion in October 2022.